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That was my point. The missing flap my have banked the plane without pilot's intervention. In fact, that's what it WILL do unless we have pilot (corrective) intervention, and we don;t know who good would the roll authority be at these slow speeds/ high AoA, to counteract a huge panel of triple-slotted fowler flaps (acknowledged, with a relatively short moment arm compared with the high-speed ailerons, roll spoilers and slow-speed ailerons). Another point is that it is very likely that this damage would have also damaged a couple of hydraulic systems (those serving this flap section) and rendered the whole flaps off service, and impossible to retract (because, as minimum, flaps asymmetry).

I am not sure the hydraulics would extend into the flaps themselves. I doubt the pilots knew they had lost a flap, and I would guess they would have wanted to keep them deployed to maintain lift at low speed/high AoA. Your point about roll authority is probably true and I doubt the pilots would have realized that their minimum safe/controllable speed was now a lot higher than normal as a result of the damage.

I have heard comments that the plane my have hit a small brick construction (shed?) which reportedly can be seen in other "successful" zero-margin take-off videos of this plane at this runway, and that this might have torn the flaps as well as caused other damage.

But I was also wondering why the seemingly deliberate turn to the right when the wise thing would be to first accelerate and then climb (and retract flaps if possible). Perhaps uncommanded?

You sure are worried about that. I'm sure it was a conscious decision to turn, in violation of your memory checklist for when you have an over run. Just like the Delta 191 guys turned towards that water tank.

You sure are worried about that. I'm sure it was a conscious decision to turn, in violation of your memory checklist for when you have an over run. Just like the Delta 191 guys turned towards that water tank.

Oh well, apparently you have never been in a real emergency. Sometimes adrenaline deletes everything from your memory. Checklists, are not priorities when you have a catastrophic situation in your hands such as fire or smoke or over running the runway and you got FOD in number one and number three engines, part of your flaps are gone, the hydraulics are gone and your altitude is only 1,500 ft.

Schwartz, is that picture from the same aircraft?, the right wing flap appears to be attached.
Kind of weird.

No sorry, that is from the video of the flight in October, where the plane just cleared the fence. I don't think I would ever stand on the end of the runway like those guys filming did. Clearly these pilots were flying the margin, but then, I think they were a bit unlucky to lose the whole flap.

No sorry, that is from the video of the flight in October, where the plane just cleared the fence. I don't think I would ever stand on the end of the runway like those guys filming did. Clearly these pilots were flying the margin, but then, I think they were a bit unlucky to lose the whole flap.

Here is a better video of the same takeoff in October. The hut is clearly shown, but it is more toward the outside of the wing. From these shots, that inner flap looks pretty small. From the damaged photo in the air, it looks like they totally lost the inner flap and part of the middle one as well. The fence could have damaged it and then the wind ripped it off later.

Here is a better video of the same takeoff in October. The hut is clearly shown, but it is more toward the outside of the wing. From these shots, that inner flap looks pretty small. From the damaged photo in the air, it looks like they totally lost the inner flap and part of the middle one as well. The fence could have damaged it and then the wind ripped it off later.

Looking at the previous successful takeoff, it didn't look so close to the fuselage, but in this video, that structure gets clobbered, you can see how low the flap is, and you see the structure disintegrate/crumble as the plane goes by. That is probably also the bang that you hear. If they had steered a tad to the left, they might have come out better. High risk + bad luck. I wonder if we'll ever get cockpit transcripts.

Oh well, apparently you have never been in a real emergency. Sometimes adrenaline deletes everything from your memory. Checklists, are not priorities when you have a catastrophic situation in your hands such as fire or smoke or over running the runway and you got FOD in number one and number three engines, part of your flaps are gone, the hydraulics are gone and your altitude is only 1,500 ft.

Elevon:

It's largely out of character for me, but I was being sarcastic. However, I totally appreciate your reply.

Bumping over the ground realizing you just failed to takeoff and smacking brick buildings and then to sit here and ask, "I don't understand why they made a slight right turn?"

I'm impressed with the APPARENT 'lack of climb' in Lefty's video (and others).

Are they going up hill, 'or' are they 'pausing' to build speed after a SLOW lift off?

[EDIT:] I checked things on Google Earth...maybe there is a 20-ft rise in terrain (sort of consistent with what the videos look like). From this, I conclude that they pilots may have gone easy on their initial climb out to let the speed build a little moreso than it being rising terrain.

Hi folks, I'm trying to upload photos from the incident video, but keep getting logged out before I can type message and get photos uploaded.

But the bullet is that up reviewing the video frame by frame (not possible just using youtube etc.) it is clear beyond any question that the right wing hit the little brick hut 'very substantially' all but totally leveling the little hut which appears to be about 6x6x5 in the form of a stack of bricks or stones.

I'll post the images in 2 or 3 comments since only 5 allowed at a time. The first image is a successfult t/o showing the hut very clearly.

...the still shots really don't do 'justice' to the in-motion but frame by frame view where the brick hut is seen definitely being hit and rather pulverized by some portion/aspect of the starboard wing.

No doubt.

The the pics here are aerials of the runway with hut shown for perspective.

Ok, enough of the building-smacking and runway length analysis...they appear to be clear, significant contributing causes and Swiss Cheese holes.

We may have to wait for the final report for weights and to determine if there were engine / acceleration problems.

In the meantime, Gabriel, the hell-better aeroengineer, once commented that there was a fundamental rule that nosing over and getting more speed can sometimes increase your aileron authority to counteract rolls...he even went so far as to say that a plane that lost a whole wing from one side, at some point / speed, would be able to counteract roll (but stressed that this was a very theoretical concept, that may lack practical application).

Well short of an entire wing, there are some actual incidents where, according to Aeroengineer calculations, aircraft had lost wing portions/flaps/slats, but were likely controllable, but unfortunately, they were flying too slow to have adequate authority and lost control and crashed.

In conflict with this are many written procedures to fly very close to prescribed speeds in the flight manual...I think that flying precisely to these speeds is stressed in training exercises and generally expected during takeoff and landing scenarios...

...which begs the age old question...could the pilots have improvised, lowered the nose, built speed (and aileron authority), and maintained control of the plane, instead of falling out of the sky? (with Gabriel, in this very thread, uttering the "S"-word where roll authority really goes to hell.)

Perhaps we need AFMS, that along with TOPMS and FLPMS that informs the pilots if extra speed is needed due to compromised air foils, or if they are accelerating too slow, or if a fuel leak is going to form a puddle...

Obviously, we cannot let the pilots think that nosing over generally increases control authority, and have them deviate from written, scientifically-calculated target speeds for climb out.

Ok, enough of the building-smacking and runway length analysis...they appear to be clear, significant contributing causes and Swiss Cheese holes.

We may have to wait for the final report for weights and to determine if there were engine / acceleration problems.

In the meantime, Gabriel, the hell-better aeroengineer, once commented that there was a fundamental rule that nosing over and getting more speed can sometimes increase your aileron authority to counteract rolls...he even went so far as to say that a plane that lost a whole wing from one side, at some point / speed, would be able to counteract roll (but stressed that this was a very theoretical concept, that may lack practical application).

Well short of an entire wing, there are some actual incidents where, according to Aeroengineer calculations, aircraft had lost wing portions/flaps/slats, but were likely controllable, but unfortunately, they were flying too slow to have adequate authority and lost control and crashed.

In conflict with this are many written procedures to fly very close to prescribed speeds in the flight manual...I think that flying precisely to these speeds is stressed in training exercises and generally expected during takeoff and landing scenarios...

...which begs the age old question...could the pilots have improvised, lowered the nose, built speed (and aileron authority), and maintained control of the plane, instead of falling out of the sky? (with Gabriel, in this very thread, uttering the "S"-word where roll authority really goes to hell.)

Perhaps we need AFMS, that along with TOPMS and FLPMS that informs the pilots if extra speed is needed due to compromised air foils, or if they are accelerating too slow, or if a fuel leak is going to form a puddle...

Obviously, we cannot let the pilots think that nosing over generally increases control authority, and have them deviate from written, scientifically-calculated target speeds for climb out.

I think a more effective strategy would be to build speed until you can retract flaps, but look where they are! There isn't much nose-lowering you can afford without mowing through some trees. The best chance you have to gain airspeed is to stay at a shallow climb until you get at least above 200', and keep it wings level, which is where the conundrum really lies...

The best procedure is to not attempt hairbrained stunts like this. I would also suggest not placing brick huts on the extended centerline.